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Rooks Keep

Third party DRM: Steam

This game requires a free Steam account to play.

Description

Deathmatch. AI & Multiplayer. Chess. Decapitation.

Descend into a brutal tournament where factions of sinister knights and grotesque beasts battle for domination in bloody arena matches and furious melee brawls. Crush opponents with hammers and shields, rend flesh with razor sharp claws and slice off heads with swords and axes.
In Rooks Keep, players will maim their competitors in both a selection of deathmatch-arena game-modes such as 'Deathmatch', 'Team-Deathmatch', 'Conversion', 'Chess', 'Last-Man-Standing' and 'Combat Chess'. Play solo, jump into multiplayer matches, or add AI opponents to squash under-foot in both single and multiplayer. We even support 3rd party Chess engines.
The game is set in a uniquely styled fantasy world, where factions battle ceaselessly for your entertainment.

Key Features:

Arena gameplay

Players will enter into a variety of game-modes, such as Deathmatch, Last-Man-Standing and Conversion(kill enemies to convert them to your team), and battle across a variety of maps with many available options and mutators.

Melee combat

The focus of Rooks Keep is on the fantasy melee combat system, featuring quick and heavy attacks, parrying, blocking, dodging and special abilities and skills.

Chess

Players can play in both Classic Chess and the unusual Combat Chess mode, where players have the opportunity to fight to retain their place on the board if attacked.

AI/LAN/Online

Rooks Keep presents players with single-player solely against AI bots, LAN and online. Also supported are 3rd party Chess engines. Even hot-seat Chess is available.

Unreal & mod support

Built on the Unreal® Development Kit™, Rooks Keep offers extensive mod support. Players will be able to use the included UnrealEd tool to build their own maps and mods.

Customer reviews

60

Not bad, but needs still underdeveloped

It's good to see another third person "shooter" ("slasher" would be more adequate, to be honest), because we don't have too many of them on PC. This one is generally oriented on multiplayer - while I'am aware, that we've got here also option to play with bots, this mode is good only for short period of time. The AI is decent for the beginner, but without proper "campaign mode" skirmish with AI became quite quickly repetitive. And there is one thing which you should know - for now there is not too many people playing in this game. Of course it doesn't mean that you won't find anyone, who would like to play with you (not to mention that it has also its advantages - minor community is usually more polite and kind for new players), but you'll probably need to use various forums/other method of contact to organise some matches.

And how about "slashing" thing? Rooks Keep has quite interesting fighting system, with standard system of quick + weak and slow + strong attacks, and more original distinction between parrying and blocking. First is harder to implement (requires good timing and reflex), but allowing to overcome even harder attacks, while the second one is much easier to use, but useless against stronger attacks. With using special ability and a couple of skills (we can improve them during the game) it gaves relatively easy to learn, but also not primitive fighting system.

Sounds great? Unfortunately, in practise we can see some disadvantages. First of all - lack of precision in case of our attacks. I've played previously in third person "slashers" like Enclave or Dark Vengeance, and in almost every of them I had feeling of having more control over my attacks (sometimes with help of crosshair, but not always). In "Rooks Keep" I feel, that my attacks are a bit chaotic, especially when I am fighting with someone on the stairs - the game can't handle with two players fighting on different "degrees" of level - so not only fighting, but also collision system needs to be improved. There is also some specific evade, it looks like really strange jump - it's another thing, that shows lack of precision (I still don't like to use this move, with its chaotic way of working).

I like the graphic style of this game (quite grim, a bit grotesque), but the engine of this game needs optimization - on the computer, which could handle without any problems with such games as Resident Evil 6 or Dead Island, I can't play too comfortable even with lowering the details .

"Rooks Keep" includes also playing in chess in two variants ("normal" and "combat chess") - I haven't play too much in these modes, but they're fine. It's a big surprise to find such thing in "Rooks Keep", but hey, a bit of madness won't hurt :)

Since the game is still under development and there are some chances, that "Rooks Keep" will eliminate some of the lacks I've mentioned, you can probably risk and try to play in this game. Because it still has a lot of potential and should be fine for people, who like this genre.